
Alumina spot price in China has been recording an incessant rise over more than a week. As per the data of Shanghai Metals Market, the price started displaying a surge from Thursday, August 16, from RMB 3059 per tonne to RMB 3108 per tonne, after showing a restraint in the previous day. Since then there was no looking back. On August 17, the price expanded to RMB 3146 per tonne, followed by RMB 3175 on August 20, RMB 3198 on August 21, and RMB 3250 and RMB 3261 in the next two consecutive days. However, today, August 24, the alumina price decided to show no change in the spot market and remained at RMB 3261 per tonne.

At the beginning of the month also, the alumina spot price was more or less on the uptrend though range bound in the first few days.
Australian alumina FOB price neither laid back to record a growth since the beginning of the month. However, from August 1 to 17, the price moved within a tight range between US$ 515 per tonne and US$ 532 per tonne. On August 20, the price surged to US$ 550 and continued rising until US$ 570 per tonne, as of today.

The reason behind this continued surge of alumina price in China and also across the globe could be the tight supply in the market due to limited availability on the closure of 50 per cent production at Hydro’s Alunorte alumina refinery that used to supply 86 per cent of its production to various parts of the world and 14 per cent to the domestic market in Brazil. The prevailing uncertainty with Rusal sanctions seemed to have been adding icing on the cake. Besides, China is almost on the way to roll out its winter heating plan and already instructing refineries and smelters to completely shut or cut down the production. This is likely to add a fuel to the tight supply in the market, resulting in rising input costs in the coming time.
As far as other raw material costs are concerned like bauxite, pre-baked anode, and aluminium fluoride, all have been showing a steady price over the month with no intermittent change. Bauxite price in the spot market is at RMB 505 per tonne, pre-baked anode at RMB 3315 per tonne, and aluminium fluoride at RMB 9800 per tonne.
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